


I Can Hear His Smile as He Sings

by little_specificity



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Backstory, Inception Bingo, M/M, Pre-Inception, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25597786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_specificity/pseuds/little_specificity
Summary: Since projections look like real people and real people can act like projections, it's weird how Arthur can tell them apart so well.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67
Collections: Inception Trope/Kink Bingo 2020





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the “backstory” and “meet ugly” squares of my tropes card for Inception Bingo 2020. 
> 
> Thank you [ PinkDogPlushie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkDogPlushie/) for helping me with mistakes and weird wordings, you rock <3

The first time they met, Eames looked like a balding old man with small eyes and a vulpine smile. He wheezed at the comment of one of his equally old and wealthy looking companions, blurring into the background of the luxurious restaurant Dom had built for the job. However, there was something about him that drew Arthur's attention instantly, his gaze stopping on his form as if the man had yelled his name from across the room. He looked normal, like any other person who would spend their evening there; but something was off. Arthur couldn’t place it. The old man met his eyes for a brief second, in the uninterested way one would meet the wandering eye of someone distractingly scanning a room. 

“There’s something wrong," Arthur told Dom, who sat in front of him finishing his overpriced steak. He immediately looked at Mal’s direction, who was in another table with the mark.

“What?” Dom asked turning his head towards Arthur again, but stopping at the sight of the projections around them.

Arthur then did the same and noticed how his projections, as he was the dreamer, were eyeing the old man, too. They didn’t look angry or threatening, but they were murmuring and looking curious. Even the man’s companions stopped talking and were looking at him strangely.

“What’s going on?” asked Dom, his body angled towards the mark and Mal’s table, ready to get moving.

“There’s something off about that guy.”

“What?” Dom narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

Arthur had been too young and new to the business back then to even start formulating a theory. But Eames had been already a talented forger even in his earliest days, and one of the best qualities of a good forger was to notice when people suspected of him. Even before they realized exactly why. 

Arthur followed him when he hurriedly left the room and Dom started to walk towards his girlfriend. Gun already in hand, brow furrowed in concentration, Arthur got out of the restaurant by the emergency exit and into the wide alley.

How fast he found himself pinned with his face on the wall was something that he would never admit to anyone. His body was tensed up and ready to offer resistance the instant he felt a hand on his arm; but the other man was too strong and fast. He pushed Arthur and threw his gun to the ground. Arthur quickly recovered and tried to push the body that was encaging his own, strong hands and firm legs pressing his own from behind.

“What the fuck?” he said forcefully while desperately trying to free himself of the embrace. It was unnatural, utterly eerie and out of place, how a man who looked so fragile was able to overpower Arthur that way. 

“If you tell me how you realized, I will let you go when you wake up,” he said, smelling like expensive cologne, with his breath clashing with the skin on the back of Arthur’s neck. He pressed his knee harder into Arthur’s thigh, making him hiss.

“What?” Arthur said, face pressed on the cold hard brick of the wall, still trying to free himself.

But again, somehow, the old man proved to be stronger that his thinned limbs and almost translucent skin made to believe. The effort being put into the struggle made them both groan, as the older one pressed their bodies together, not letting room for escape.

“How did you realize?” he asked, more forcefully.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the point man answered in a tight voice.

“Last chance. How did you know?” The man insisted in a low voice. 

Dom should have been there, already. 

“There they are, sir.” Arthur turned his head towards the voice, at the sight of the mark of the job approaching with men holding and practically dragging Dom and Mal out of the restaurant, flushed and furious-looking. “He’s the other one.”

“These people came to rob you, Mr. Holden.” The old man let Arthur go, taking a few steps back. Arthur had never been so glad to feel the cold wind against his back before. “We’ll take care of them.”

There was no point in running then, being outnumbered by men with guns to cause agonizing pain more than to kill. The mark seemed to be militarized. If it hadn’t been for the bewilderment and anger he felt from looking at his attacker, Arthur would have been deeply affected by what seemed to be his first fatal mistake in a job.

“He’s a forger, I think," Mal said when the three found themselves handcuffed inside a van in the parking lot, with nothing else to do than wait for the timer to run off and wake up to Edith Piaf letting go of her emotional baggage. “Or you really got overpowered by an old man. Either way, that’s embarrassing, Arthur.”

Arthur didn’t answer, dawning realization washing through him. He finally could put his finger and what was off, but still had no clue how he noticed anything earlier. All he saw was the man chatting, he didn’t know why he felt the way he did.

“He’s not fully militarized. Or efficiently,” Dom said. “Projections would have ripped us apart if he were. Those guys came to steal the code, too.”

Arthur closed his eyes and let the back of his head rest on the metallic surface, sighing. 

“We must know him or her if they used a forge and cuffed us up instead of shooting the competence in their sleep,” Dom continued. 

“That or maybe they want to work with us someday,” Mal chuckled with no real humour.

“They got inside the dream with us, Mal, they must have been spying on us all this time. We certainly don’t look very professional,” Dom answered angrily. “And Arthur got beaten up by a octogenarian.”

“Fuck off.” Arthur started to say, while the first melodies of the song entered the vehicle. He went quiet and felt Mal’s head on his shoulder as they waited.

When they woke up, the mark was still sleeping in his study, by their side. It was a dreamless sleep to give Dom, Mal and Arthur time to pick up and leave. The only trace of the presence of the men who had ruined their heist was the small piece of paper that Arthur found in his coat pocket, hours later.


	2. Part 2

As years passed and he felt more and more comfortable with messing around in his subconscious, Arthur realised that his favorite thing about his job was practising. It wasn’t the planning like many of his colleagues assumed; or the execution, no matter how thrilling and rewarding that could be. What he liked the most was getting to play with his dreams; turning sketches and models to buildings and mazes, noticing mistakes and figuring how to fix them. Experimenting with the power of his mind, with pure, raw creation and no fear of consequences like many people still had. It would be his downfall, eventually, he knew.

On that particular occasion, he wasn’t building castles or watching a colleague die over and over to test the physics of a new structure. During that night illuminated by the dim light of the sketchy bar located in his dreamed city of preference, he grabbed his glass of whisky and walked towards the other corner of the room. He took a seat on the stool next to a petite redhead with whom he'd exchanged a brief look while he scanned the room with his gaze, earlier.

“Hello.”

“Dammit," the girl answered as soon as he greeted her. Arthur smiled before taking a sip. “What was it this time?”

“I don’t know, it was just a feeling I had.”

She rolled her eyes. He took another drink and watched the bartender pour drinks to some projections for a while while she rested her chin on one hand and looked at him expectantly.

“You were tapping your fingers at the rhythm of that awful song again," he said, looking at the girl from the corner of his eyes. She sighed.

“Who would have thought that a pop song would mean the end of my career?” she said dramatically, bumping their shoulders softly, the posture she had been trying to maintain earlier completely forgotten.

Arthur didn’t comment on how he was the only one who knew about how much the song had stuck on Eames’ head because they both already knew it. Not to mention the fact that, despite his frankly exaggerated drumming of fingers on the bar top, Arthur was probably the only one who would paid attention to something like that. And to be so familiar with how Eames drummed his fingers and moved his feet softly at the rhythm of his favorite songs.

Arthur wondered why Eames was always so blatant with his flirting but never acknowledged their little practice sessions. Not even a little, unfunny joke like the ones he produced so effortlessly all day. It was almost a ritual at that point to always make time for going under, just the two of them, and test each other’s abilities. Sometimes they would try to create impossible buildings or objects that only existed in hurried sketches in the margin of pages; wordlessly unafraid of judgement about ridiculousness and valuing the other’s knowledge. 

Eames' favorite game, no matter that he called it training, was testing how fast Arthur could find him in a room filled with projections.

“Do you think she’s pretty?” Eames asked, still in the redhead's form, making Arthur lose his train of thoughts. 

“Yes.”

“She’s a friend of mine, I could introduce you two.” 

“Do you forge your friends very often?” Arthur arched an eyebrow.

“Of course,” Eames answered, playing with the bracelet he was wearing.

“That’s messed up.”

Arthur smiled. He stared at her too green eyes, too red hair, too fair skin. She was very pretty, but entirely different from how Arthur had seen her minutes ago from his booth. There was something more to her, something previously hidden that slowly made its way out in front of his eyes. Her smile mischievous, her head tilted slightly to her side, her eyes soft and warm. An essence that could barely be contained.

“I did it on purpose," Eames said suddenly. “The tapping fingers. I wanted to know how much you pay attention.”

“I know,” Arthur replied. “And I pay a lot of attention, it’s my job.” 

In a blink of an eye, red hair became brown, pale skin tanned, soft curves turned into muscles and hard lines. Their shoulders then bumped without Eames having to lean to Arthur’s side. 

Eames described dropping his forges to removing layers and layers of makeup with telekinesis or something equally amusing depending on the day. Arthur saw it simply as a veil being lifted. Arthur didn’t show it, never did, but it always caught him slightly off guard. 

They both glanced at their sides to see Arthur’s projections’ reactions, which were watching Eames with the amazement Arthur didn’t show himself. It was one of the many things they never addressed, how Arthur's subconscious was oddly accepting of whatever the forger did instead of trying to kick him out of his mind.

“We should look deeper into it, eventually,” Eames said, breaking the rules.

“We should.” 

“One more?” He asked before quickly draining down the drink he had ordered before Arthur sat down, which would have been impressive if it was real.

“Alright, one more.” 

“Go to the museum in ten minutes," he said before leaving. “I’ll make sure to choose a less attractive friend.”

He would never tell Eames that the only thing he needed to do those days to know instantly if he was wearing a forge or if the person in front of him was simply a projection, was to make eye contact. He probably knew it already. Eames had always been one for making points without saying anything.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is inspired by the line “Though I cannot see, I can hear her smile as she sings” from alt-j’s “Arrival in Nara”. 
> 
> [ Come say hi on my Tumblr!](https://little-specificity.tumblr.com)


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